Melanie Cross
Melanie Cross was a supporting character in CBS' Under the Dome. She was pulled from the lake by Julia Shumway, after Julia dropped the egg at the bottom of it. Before the Dome Melanie was born from an affair between Laura Cross and Don Barbara. She lived with her family in Zenith. At one point she visited the Barbara's family residence, where she played with young Barbie. Before leaving she said that her mother would love to meet him and that they will meet each other someday when Barbie is bigger. Later Melanie and her family moved to Chester's Mill, where she attended High School in 1988. That year she had a relationship with Sam Verdreaux and was friends with both Lyle and Pauline. One night she saw pink stars falling and called her friends to investigate. In the woods, they found a crater with a meteorite at its core with four glowing blue handprints. They climbed down into the crater and placed their hands on the glowing handprints. The meteorite emitted a glowing blue light and cracked, revealing a black egg They decided to leave, but Melanie tried to stop them, telling them that they should protect the egg. Lyle disagreed and pushed Melanie into the meteorite, which caused her to hit her head, and resulted in her death. Sam, Lyle and Pauline decided to keep her death a secret and buried her with the crater and the egg. Later she was reported missing. Her family, hoping she would return, kept her room undisturbed. Under the Dome Season 2 "Heads Will Roll" Julia sees Melanie struggling in the water, unaware of who she is, and rushes in and rescues her. Melanie then stays in Sam's cabin and runs away after she wakes up. Melanie is later seen by Angie as she is wandering through the town. Later, she is seen again with Linda's corpse, telling her she's sorry and closing her eyes. Angie sees Melanie again walking on the street late at night and decides to follow her. They end up at the school and just as Melanie cracks open a locker, Angie asks if she is okay, but Melanie runs away from her. Angie's curiosity led her to seeing what was in the locker just before she was murdered by Sam Verdreaux, leaving questions such as why that locker was important to Melanie and what was in the locker. "Infestation" Melanie is running away from Angie's murder scene late at night and falls asleep deep in the forest. At dawn she is discovered in the forest by Norrie and Joe. They ask her for her name and she says, "I don't know". She comes back to into town with them, and stays with Julia. When Angie is found deceased, Melanie becomes the prime suspect because they find her shoe print in the crime scene. Both Junior and Joe run to the jail cell Melanie is in and try to kill her to avenge Angie, but at the last minute, Julia finds evidence that she was there but didn't kill Angie and she didn't have enough time to save her. She stops Joe before he can shoot her. "Force Majeure" Melanie is caught by Barbie going through his things, but she tries to tell him that he looks familiar and that she was just trying to look for reminders of who she is. Julia comes into the room and thinks Barbie is interrogating Melanie. Melanie holes up at the school with Joe and Norrie when red, acidic rain, falls from the sky. Melanie and Joe begin to form a bond, which makes Norrie jealous. When the town gets WiFi temporarily, Joe follows the signal and finds it is coming from the locker that Angie had tried to open when she was murdered. Melanie somehow knows the combination and opens the locker, making Norrie even more suspicious of her and demands an answer Melanie truthfully says she doesn't know and she just saw the combination in her head. The group looks through a list of all the people that had that locker through the years to see if any of the names look familiar to her. She points to the name, "Melanie Cross" and Joe looks in the 1987- 88 yearbook, Joe sees Melanie's photo, which reveals that Melanie hasn't aged in 25 years. "Revelation" Melanie and the others find Barbie and tell him their theory and they end up looking through the newspapers of 1988 and find that Melanie went missing that year. The newspaper also said where she lived so the group takes a trip there. They arrive at her old house and she remembers seeing pinks stars fall in the forest outside the house and says they should look there. She walks to the exact same spot where the mini-dome was and gets flashbacks when she stands there. She remembers the events of one night that she went to investigate the forest with her friends, Pauline Verdreaux, Lyle Chumley, and her boyfriend Sam. She found a meteorite and when they all put their hands on it, it split open. She found a pink glowing egg and wanted to protect it, but the others were scared and just wanted to leave it alone. She ran up the crater with it and someone pushed her back down, where she hit her head on the meteor, resulting in her death. Melanie didn't see who pushed her and suspects it could have been Lyle when Junior says that Lyle killed Angie. "Reconciliation" Melanie, Joe, and Norrie are told to stay put, but of course they don't, and head over to the dome's wall. Joe and Norrie wonder if Melanie rounds the dome, if it will show her visions, but it doesn't work. A frustrated Melanie wants to know why she is alive, and Norrie tells her that she would trade Melanie "rotting in the ground" for her mom to come back alive. Angry and hurt, Melanie runs away, with Joe soon catching up. As Joe comforts Melanie, she kisses him. Norrie catches up and she and Melanie fight. After Norrie gets a cut on her arm, Joe decides to compare his and Melanie's blood samples to see if they match. Melanie asks Rebecca Pine if she can make any distinction between Joe's and her blood. "In the Dark" Melanie starts getting close to Junior because he reminds her of Sam when he was younger. As they check on Joe and Norrie, Melanie has a moment with Junior, which Norrie interrupts. The three go to Joe's house to make sure he is okay, and realize they need to find the egg. At the lake, the four decide they need to touch hands. Melanie suggests she can be the fourth hands since she was one of the original four hands. When Melanie touches hands with Joe, Norrie, and Junior; the Egg rises to the surface. "Going Home" Melanie awakens after falling asleep beside Junior. Julia and Barbie come to the house and tell Junior that Sam killed Angie. Junior refuses to believe it, but later asks Melanie if she thinks Sam is capable of murder. Melanie admits that Sam has changed since she knew him. Big Jim overhears and Melanie leaves, so Big Jim can talk to Junior. Later, Melanie and Junior go to the school and the tunnels where they tell Julia that they have the egg. The egg glows and shows an Obelisk. Melanie realizes it was from her hometown, Zenith. "Awakening" Melanie and Julia are eating at the diner when Joe and Norrie come in. They show Julia a message from Barbie's father, Don, who tells them Barbie is alive and to come and bring the egg. Julia doubts it's from Barbie and they go to the cliff, where Julia writes an e-mail to Barbie "The Red Door" When Julia contemplates handing the egg to the military for Barbie's safe return, Melanie refuses, saying she knows something bad will happen if they do. She runs away and finds Junior, who wants to hide the egg from his father. Melanie and Junior hide the egg in Big Jim's shelter. Melanie asks Junior to stay with her and guard the egg and they both end up falling asleep. "The Fall" Melanie and Junior awaken after falling asleep in the shelter. Melanie kisses Junior before leaving the shelter. She heads to Julia's house where she is happy to see that Barbie is back. Barbie and Julia start talking about their plan to get the town out by giving the military the egg. Melanie still refuses to give up the egg and Barbie asks to speak to her in private. Outside, Barbie tells Melanie that he was the little boy she played with when she was younger. Melanie says her mother, Laura, wanted them to meet. Barbie tells her that his father had an affair with a woman named Laura and they had a daughter together. Melanie realizes that she and Barbie are siblings. Barbie asks Melanie to trust him and come to the Sweetbriar to hear them out. After Melanie hears the plan and the town gets on board with it, they ask Melanie again if she is willing to give up the egg. Melanie says she has to think about it and leaves, but soon returns and reveals she has chosen to give up the egg. Melanie leads them to the shelter and is stunned that the egg is gone. Suddenly, an Earthquake is triggered, and Melanie escapes the shelter with Barbie and Julia. Melanie faints, and Barbie and Julia bring her to Sam's cabin. Sam injects Melanie with Atropine to bring her heart rate up. Season 3 "Move On" Melanie leads the townspeople of Chester's Mill into a white mist. The townspeople suddenly find themselves outside of the dome. Melanie is nowhere to be found. A year later, Barbie goes to the Sweetbriar and finds Joe and Ben and catches up with them. The two teenagers leave and Barbie looks out the window and sees a vision of Melanie walking. Ben also witnesses this and confronts Barbie about it. Unknownst to them, the real Melanie that is back under the dome is watching from the caves and isn't happy about Ben trying to find the answer to what's happening. Barbie doesn't believe Ben and shrugs him off. Ben refuses to let his idea go though and finds evidence that none of what's happening to them is real. He makes his way to the memorial and immediately begins having an asthma attack. The real reason for this is because his real body is being strangled by Melanie. Melanie coldly apologizes to his corpse before leaving to follow a butterfly. "But I'm Not" In truth, it's revealed the whole town and Barbie are in coccoons where they are all in a dream like state. Melanie, realizing he was seeing through the illusions, grabs Ben out of his coccoon-pod and begins to strangle him to death with her bare hands. She gives a cold, unsympathic apology and pulls out his body. She then finds Junior after he's been separated from Julia. She then intervenes when he attempts to go find her. After a kiss, she forcibly puts Junior in the coccoon and he's in the illusion with the others. During the process she tells Junior that "they're waiting" for them (the townspeople) to change, although her meaning is never fully explained. Julia eventually finds her and the coccoons, along with Melanie. Whatever plans she had for Julia, come to a hault when Julia mentions her father has the egg. She then convinces Julia to rest while they wait for Don. While she slept, she's greeted by Don and eagerly asks for the egg. Don explains how overjoyed he is to see his daughter, then she says to him "But I'm Not.", Melanie takes his neck with one arm, and kills him. She leaves Julia to use the egg over Christine Price's coccoon for some unknown purpose. She's quickly found out by Julia. When she realizes Julia doesn't trust her, she turns on her and during the struggle reveals a vague allies she works with. Big Jim, however, comes and puts an end to her plans to save Junior. After he destroys the egg, the people are freed from the coccoons. But Melanie has disappeared, leaving more questions than answers as to what Melanie's become or even if it's really her anymore. "Redux" Melanie sees all the dead monarch butterflies and seems pretty sad about it. Christine Price scolds her in the caves for not completing her mission to transform the people in the cocoons into "who they need to be" and to protect the egg. Melanie asks what to do if she finds Julia, and Christine says if she shows up, "kill her." When Julia climbs up the ladder out of the caves, Melanie grabs her. Barbie tries to quickly climb up, but Melanie drops the ladder. Melanie then looks at her and says, "Looks like it's just the two of us." She fights with Julia, showing unnatural strength, and tries to strangle her. Julia tries to fight back but is too weak, after a short battle Melanie then grabs Julia by the throat. Then Melanie says, "I should've just cocooned you like the others! Things would've been so much better." She then gasps in pain as suddenly, Christine Price of all people literally stabs her in the back with a knife. Julia then backs away and watches Christine as she pushes Melanie to the ground, Christine then asks Julia "are you okay". Then, Barbie emerges from the caves and points his gun at Christine and asks "what happened?". Christine says "I was out looking for food and I saw this girl. She, she was strangling Julia". After she says "what have I done?", Julia says "you saved my life". After Christine leaves, Barbie then goes to comfort Julia, they hug and Barbie turns his head one last time to see Melanie. Afterwards, Julia & Barbie bury Melanie at the lake alongside Barbie's father, Don Barbara. "The Kinship" While she never appears but is briefly mentioned, Julia is thankful Christine was there to save her from Melanie. Appearances Killed Victims *Ben "Benny" Drake *Don Barbara Trivia *She was one of the 4 original hands, alongside Sam Verdreaux, Pauline Verdreaux and Lyle Chumley. *She shares similar qualities with Angie. They both were the first of each of the four hands to be killed. Also, with Melanie's second death, they've both died at the beginning of the second season. *Chronologically, Melanie is Barbie's older sister, but because of her death, Barbie is now physically older than her. *Melanie is currently one of the two TV characters to have their death shown through a flashback (her first death), the other being Peter Shumway. *Melanie holds the title of being the only character who died twice in the series. Category:TV Series Characters Category:Season 2 Characters Category:Season 3 Characters Category:Teenagers Category:Antagonist